Last Appearances And Reading Orders

Agatha Christie wrote a concluding Hercule Poirot novel to be published later. Poirot dies. Andrea Camilerri wrote a concluding Salvo Montalbano novel to be published later. I am about to read it. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a concluding Sherlock Holmes short story to be published immediately. Holmes died but - we know what happened.

Usually, an author simply writes a last episode of a series and the last published episode is also the last in terms of fictional chronology. Our chronologically last sight of Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, both still alive, is at the end of Anderson's novel, Mirkheim. However, reading the Technic History in its original book publication order enables us to appreciate that finale, then to recapture these and a few supporting characters as they had appeared in chronologically earlier instalments. Six characters appear in the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy (Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World and Mirkheim):

van Rijn (6 times)

Falkayn (5)

Adzel (3)

Chee Lan (3)

Coya Conyon/Falkayn (1)

Sandra Tamarin (1)

- and (re)appear, earlier in their lives, in The Earth Book of Stormgate:

van Rijn (4)

Falkayn (2)

Adzel (3)

Chee Lan (2)

Coya Conyon (1)

Sandra Tamarin (1)

If we can get hold of the volumes, then we have a choice between this reading order and the purely chronological order presented in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga.